Dave Dalton Thomas was a 23-year-old copy editor for the San Angelo Standard-Times when he happened upon a Texas entertainment scoop that would change his life. Thomas trekked to Luckenbach, his spiritual recharge spot, on a day off in 1995. While at the storied dance hall, he ran into promoters for Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic, a landmark event of longhaired country music fans that had thrived in the ’70s but nearly went defunct in the early ’90s. The promoters disclosed that the Picnic was back after a four-year hiatus, and would be held in Luckenbach, a musical outpost in the Hill Country.
Thomas’ 1995 report of the Picnic’s grand return in the got picked up all over the world via wire published by the author’s alma mater, Texas A&M University Press.
